or when the storm brews…keep calm and check reality

Catalan Public Broadcasting Corporation weather forecast. Note the conspicuous absence of Spain and how the map includes Valencia and the Balearic Islands in Spain, and Roussillon in southern France, more than doubling the size of current-day Catalonia

Quite irresponsibly, everyone seems to be overlooking one all-important aspect of the current political situation in Catalonia.

Almost by the day, we find ourselves on the receiving end of a bombardment of largely insignificant news, for the storm brewing ahead, about the percentage in favour of independence standing at 51 or lowering to 48, or whether an independent Catalonia would form part of the European Union or not…

Now, all this is beside the point and little more than beating around the bush!

I recently spent quite some time carefully reading through the letter which Tarradellas wrote in 1981 about the risks which the ideology and attitude of Jordi Pujol (Catalan President 1980-2003) and its party Convergència i Unió (Convergence and Union) could pose to Catalonia.

Josep Tarradellas was one of the founders of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican left of Catalonia) in 1931 and the party leading the ongoing catalán secession movement.

He went on to become a Member of the Catalan Parliament and local Interior Minister in 1932, and then local Finance Minister four years later.

In 1954, he was appointed President of the Catalan Government-in-exile and then named President of the regional pre-autonomy government by Adolfo Suarez in 1977.

After 33 years in exile and aware of the complexity of Catalan society, his first words in the newly reinstated office of President of the Generalidad (Catalan government) proved revelatory of his political thinking and moral values: “Citizens of Catalonia, I am here at last!”, and not “Catalans, I am here at last!”.

This experienced statesman and authority on Catalan political history and its protagonists retired from office in 1980.

In 1981, he wrote a bitter letter to the population airing concerns which he himself admitted were “becoming almost morbid and had him more than worried” (paragraph 33 of the complete letter reproduced below).

Not so much a letter as a prophecy, his missive began with a criticism of Pujol – the president of the Government of Catalonia for the next 23 years- for refusing to permit the traditional “Viva España!” (and “Viva Cataluña!”) at the official handover ceremony the previous year (6).